


high speed, but you know you're in safe hands

by unrestrainedpassion



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bigfoot - Freeform, Christian Demonology, Conspiracy Theories, Demons, I'm back after the longest goddamn hiatus ever, Keith and Lance bicker at each other and then fall in love or is it the other way around?, M/M, buzzfeed unsolved au, x-files theme
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-08-23 14:37:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20244481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unrestrainedpassion/pseuds/unrestrainedpassion
Summary: This is it, he thinks. This is the moment his whole life has prepared him for. When he goes inside, he’ll finally get the closest he’s ever been to a real interaction with a demonic presence. He has no idea what’s going to happen, but he is as prepared as he’ll ever --“Are you going to finish that?” Lance gestures at the smoothie in Keith’s hand. “Because I’m hungry. And I’m taller than you, so I feel like I should get snack priority.”





	1. Prologue

When Keith was thirteen years old, he saw Bigfoot.

No, really.

He was camping with his stepbrother deep in the Olympic National Forest. Keith knew he was short, but the unnerving straightness of the giant redwood trees that surrounded them made him feel absolutely microscopic. The trees wore lush coats of dark green moss, and the only thing he could hear was the sound of his own tentative footfalls. 

“You like it?” Shiro asked. Since being honorably discharged from the military and losing his arm, his older brother had thrown himself into hiking and backpacking. After much cajoling, Keith had been bribed into joining him for a weekend in the Washington rainforests. He hadn’t expected it to be so beautiful, or so eerie. He found himself nodding, eyes never leaving the distant treetops.

The campground they had chosen was blissfully empty, save for their three person tent (they were borrowing from Keith’s biological father’s old camping stuff). Shiro had stored their food in a separate bag, and they planned to leave it on the opposite end of the clearing overnight. There was a firepit in the center of their lot. Keith wanted to roast marshmallows but it looked like the pit might be too soggy. 

Things never completely dried out here. 

They ate a can of beans heated up over a camping stove (Shiro was nothing if not prepared) and chatted. Keith never really talked much, but Shiro had the patience of a stone and could coax conversation out of him almost against his will. In the light of the lantern, they talked about Shiro’s plans for the future, and what trails they should hike tomorrow.

Eventually he had to go to the bathroom. The bathroom shed was a five minute walk back to the main road where their car was parked. The sun hadn’t sunk completely yet, the light a soft enough blue that he could see the path pretty clearly. 

“You sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Shiro asked, the line between his brows darkening. “I might as well use the restroom too.”

Keith shook his head. “I’m fine on my own. Someone has to stay with our stuff. You can go when I come back.”

Shiro pursed his lips and nodded. Keith had a point, and Keith also hated being supervised or accompanied anywhere. Better to let him have this than to start a fight when they were both so tired. “Okay, go. But if you’re not back in ten minutes I’m coming after you. And remember--”

“I know, I know. Make noise so bears can hear you coming.”

Shiro smiled. “I’ve taught you so well.”

Keith rolled his eyes, but a grin tugged at his lip. “Don’t eat all the marshmallows, okay?” 

He heard Shiro grumbling about “only taking one or two” as he trudged away.

The second Keith stepped out of the range of their lantern, the path seemed darker than it looked from the comfort of their circle of light. He almost turned around and asked Shiro to join him (he wouldn’t have made fun of him for it), but something in him kept him walking. It was a straight path, he couldn’t get lost. There and back. Simple. 

Except halfway to the bathroom, he came to a fork in the path. How was this possible? There was one way in, and one way out. He didn’t remember a second path. The angle between the two options was acute -- maybe they both came from the parking lot, just from different ends? Keith nodded to himself. That was it. He remembered seeing trails at both ends of the small, rectangular lot. They must meet up here and trace a path to the campground together. 

So it didn’t matter which direction he went. He swallowed, the sound deafening in the silence of the woods. He went left. 

He walked for another ten minutes before he had the sense to check his glow-in-the-dark watch for the time. Fifteen minutes had passed since he’d left. He’d gone the wrong way. He backtracked, trying to find the junction again, but all he could see were trees. He fumbled for the flashlight he carried with him but it must have fallen out of his pocket while he was lounging around their campsite. 

Okay. Okay. This isn’t bad, he went left, so he’ll just walk back through the forest in the general direction he had come from. He’ll stumble out into the clearing eventually. Except he had spun around so much he had no idea which way he had been going before he checked the time. Stupid. The trees grew so thickly he could barely fit his body through them. He hadn’t been on the trail for a good hundred paces. His face felt wet, and he touched a hand to his cheek to find several thin cuts from branches whipping him in the face. Shiro would be so -- 

He heard a sound behind him. He froze. If he thought the woods were silent before, they were even more now. 

Shit.

_ Silent _ . He’d forgotten Shiro’s advice. Make noise, so bears can hear you coming. His brain knew how rare bear sightings were in national parks, especially so close to the campgrounds (was he even close to the campground anymore?) but his heart, rabbiting out of his chest, knew for certain. It was a bear, and now, if he made a sound, he would definitely piss it off. 

The air was completely still. Keith couldn’t even breathe. A snuffling noise from close behind him made his skin crawl. Numb with terror, he closed his eyes. It had gotten so dark now that it made no difference whether his eyes were open or not. A twig snapped. 

A breeze stirred the hair on the back of his neck, unusually warm. Or was that -- was that the bear  _ breathing? _ A stench so thick he could taste it washed over him. It smelled of rotting meat and  _ beast _ . He was going to die. It had spotted him, and it was going to maul him. He was as good as dead.

The flintiest, angriest, most abandoned and orphaned kid part of him reared its head in anger. He would not die like this, ambushed from behind. He whirled around, stumbling back into a tree in confusion when he laid eyes on the thing.

It was a man. But it was a bear? Bark scraped his back viciously as he pressed himself as far away from it as he could. It was huge, nine feet tall or more, and covered in thick, glossy black fur. But it was standing upright like a man. 

He craned his neck up, trying to find its face, when more branches snapped behind the two of them. The thing swung its huge head around, trying to find the source of the noise. Its eyes glinted like a cat’s. Human eyes couldn’t reflect light like that. 

“Keith!” Shiro yelled, crashing through the undergrowth to the beast’s left. 

Keith tore his eyes away from the thing. He had to save Shiro. “Don’t! Watch out!” his voice cracked. His throat was so dry that he didn’t recognize his own voice. 

Shiro tripped into the clearing and braced himself on a trunk with his metal arm. He bent over, panting. “What did I tell you about following the path?” 

Keith jerked his head back to the beast, but it was gone. The forest was empty. The moon came out from behind a cloud and lit the ground with silver light. 

He burst into tears. Shiro enfolded him into a bear hug. “Don’t worry me like that,” he whispered. 

His legs were so numb he had to ride back to camp on Shiro’s back. Luckily, the way was clear enough after Shiro had destroyed all the plant growth trying to get to him. When Shiro stepped delicately over a snapped sapling, he shook his head sheepishly. “Let’s not tell the park rangers about this, huh? I’m a danger to the park, apparently.”

Keith just nodded. He couldn't get the image of the giant hairy man with the glowing eyes out of his head. 

He never would.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, second chapter is a go!! Thank you very much for reading! I'm probably not going to update this every day, but I finished the second chapter soon enough that I didn't feel like waiting to post it. What is a structured update system? Never heard of her.

“This case is just one of many in our ongoing investigation into the question: Are ghosts real?”

Lance shakes his head for the camera. 

Keith huffs. “I’m telling you, Lance, this case is actually scary. People have died.”

His co host snorts. “That’s literally every case we talk about on here. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Honestly, in this case? I’m not actually sure if I want to see any proof. Everyone who has interacted with the doll has gotten hurt, and I don’t want to ask it to kill me for proof.”

Lance grins. “Don’t worry, I can do that.”

“Please don’t.”

“I’ll just ask Annabelle to possess you on camera. Maybe rip your spine out a little?”

“Shut up.”

“And we’ll know if she can’t do it that she’s not all that strong after all.”

“Can I do the backstory now? Or are you just going to keep being cynical?”

“I mean, I’m definitely not going to stop being  _ logical _ any time soon, but you go right ahead.”

Keith sighs, looking into the camera in front of them. He knows his cheeks are red. Bantering with Lance always makes him feel fluttery and hot. Sitting next to a ridiculously attractive man who loves to rile him up on camera really does test his self control. He takes a moment to center his thoughts (and get them  _ away _ from Lance’s crooked grin) before beginning.

“In 1968, a student nurse received the doll that would become Annabelle from her mother as a birthday gift.”

“Interesting gift.”

Keith shoots Lance a glare before continuing. “The nurse and her roommate would begin to notice the doll moving around on its own. A few times, the nurse said she left her on her bed, but would find her in the living room without having moved her.”

“How did she know that the roommate didn’t move it?”

“Okay, that’s fair. There’s more evidence, obviously, but there’s no way to make sure that the roommate wasn’t fucking with her at first.”

“At first? Oh, is there more quote-on-quote  _ evidence _ that Annabelle was possessed?”

“Once,” he continues, pointedly addressing the camera, “the nurse left Annabelle in the living room and returned home to find her in her bedroom, behind a locked door.”

“So like. The roommate didn’t have access to the room, is what you’re saying?”

“No. Only the nurse had access to the room, and she was out all day.”

Lance leans toward him and nods. “That is more compelling. I have to agree with you.”

Keith gulps, refusing to let his eyes drift to Lance’s lips. “Really?”

“Nope. They had a landlord, right? Maybe he was trying to freak them out. There’s never only one key to any room -- but if you ask me, they probably made this up for attention.”

“You’re so annoying, you know that?”

Lance laughs brightly. “Sure, if you find reality checks annoying.”

Why does he have to be so charming? “Unnerved by these troubling events, the nurse called a psychic to hold a seance. During this session, the psychic revealed that the doll was possessed by the spirit of a little girl named Annabelle. There is evidence that a little girl by that name was killed on the property before it became their residence.”

“So was the doll fine until it got to the nurse’s apartment?” Lance says, leaning back in his chair. 

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if the little girl supposedly died on the property, doesn’t that mean she possessed the doll after it got to the nurse’s house?”

Keith nods. “Yeah, that seems reasonable.”

“So if the nurse’s mom bought her a less weird gift, like, I dunno, a stapler, then the stapler would have been possessed instead?”

Keith blinks. “How is a stapler a normal gift?”

“It’s certainly more useful than a raggedy ann doll.”

“I think it's assumed the spirit picked the doll because it was the most sensible thing to manipulate.”

Lance scoffs. “How is something more sensible to possess than something else? Is there a guide I can look up?”

“Oh my god, it’s because it’s humanoid, you absolute cretin.”

Lance shrugs. “Look, if I died and I was trapped in this realm, I wouldn’t want to live in the body of anything approaching a human. I would probably possess, like, a coffee maker, or a dog, or something.”

Despite Keith’s best efforts, he snorts. 

“You know I’m right.”

“I know you’re derailing the backstory, Lance.”

Lance waves a hand airily. “Fine, fine. Finish up. I wanna go meet this doll.”

At the reminder that they’re both going to actually see Annabelle face to face, Keith shivers. In all his years investigating and hunting the paranormal since he was thirteen, he never got rid of the prickly feeling on the back of his neck when he came close to something so dark. He’d never admit this to Lance, but he really is terrified. They never visit their cases up close, but the temptation to film the doll itself is too great. They need views to be paid, and Keith needs to be paid in order to keep investigating the supernatural. 

If he’s completely honest, though, he is invested in finding proof. He’s never told anyone about meeting Bigfoot (he knows now that was the beast he encountered in the Olympic rainforest fifteen years ago), because he knows he needs proof. Rock solid hard evidence that could convince even the staunchest of nonbelievers, like Lance. And as hard as the lump of fear in his heart may be, he is  _ going _ to get it. 

“When they learned that the doll was possessed by a dead little girl, the nurse and her roommate tried to nurture the doll, feeling bad for it. But the doll began exhibiting frightening behavior. The roommate’s friend reported sleeping in their apartment and waking up to find Annabelle on his bed at his feet. He was paralysed, and watched her crawl up his body and attempt to strangle him. Eventually he passed out, and when he woke up there was no sign of her. But he was convinced it wasn’t a dream.”

“Like a sleep paralysis demon?” 

“Yeah, except, like, real.”

“Sure.”

“After Ed and Lorraine Warren, paranormal investigators, began looking into the doll’s dark history, they discovered that the doll was demonically possessed. They learned that while demons can’t inhabit inanimate objects, it’s likely that a demonic presence was manipulating the doll in order to find a human host to possess.”

“Who says demons can’t inhabit inanimate objects?”

Keith consults his notes. “I believe they had a Catholic priest and exorcist help them out with the diagnosis.”

“Well, who told him that rule? Who makes these rules?”

“I don’t know!”

“ _ Jeesh _ . Continue, I guess.”

Keith throws a tired look at the camera. “Basically, we’re going to visit Ed and Lorraine’s museum of horrors and check out Annabelle herself.”

“And Keith is going to shit his pants on camera!”

“Maybe so! But Lance will finally admit he’s wrong about supernatural shit -- which I am looking forward to, and I know our viewers are too.”

“I seriously doubt it.”

“You do that.”

-

The idea to start a YouTube channel for paranormal investigations had, in fact, been Lance’s. 

Keith was already heavily invested in his research. It had gotten to the point where his friends had to schedule outings far in advance in order to guilt him into abandoning his corkboard, pushpin, and thread-littered apartment and socialize with them. Hunk and Pidge had started knitting their brows together whenever they asked how he was doing. Of course, none of them knew that he had seen Bigfoot when he was thirteen, so they all had no clue why finding proof of the paranormal was so important to him. But he needed to know he wasn’t insane, so he… drove himself insane searching. For what, he hadn’t known.

Then he had met Lance. Originally Hunk’s friend, he had been introduced to the group when Pidge and Hunk had gotten worried enough about him to start trying to trick him into dating. Lance was an outspoken skeptic, and bringing Lance and Keith together had the added benefit of potentially embarrassing Keith into dropping his obsession.

Instead of mutual attraction or a reality check, however, Keith had just gotten saddled with a huge crush on a guy who debated him enthusiastically and never tried to show him pity for believing in cryptids, or aliens, or whatever was the supernatural flavor of the week. Instead of discouraging his search for proof, Lance focused it by asking the most ridiculous, annoying,  _ reasonable  _ questions. He gave Keith a clear path to finding answers. 

So when Lance suggested they filmed these debate sessions and post them on YouTube, he could hardly resist. Any excuse to spend time with him was good enough for Keith, and this had the added bonus of introducing Keith to even more points of view and interest to further refine his research.

He hadn’t expected to become so famous. Subscribers flooded in, and before long they were sitting at the 2.7M mark brainstorming ways to slam themselves to 3M. He can hardly believe it. Millions of people want to hear what he has to say about spooky shit, and they think he’s  _ funny _ . Or rather, they think his dialogue with  _ Lance _ is funny. His crush aside, that’s a hell of an ego trip. He never stops worrying he’ll let his subscribers down, but goddammit, he’s gonna try his best for as long as he can. 

So far, it’s been two years. Two years in close quarters with Lance McClain, and he’s beginning to wonder if his subscribers can pick up on his massive crush. (He actually knows they have, as there’s much speculation about their relationship on twitter, but he’s just going to pretend he doesn’t know about it. Lance certainly doesn’t.)

Anyway. So. Annabelle. 

Lance is driving their rental car to Monroe, Connecticut. And he won’t shut up. “All I’m saying is, even if there are literally thousands of sightings of Bigfoot in America, you can’t count half of them. I’d only believe it if you could give me picture proof. Or straight up stuck me in front of a Bigfoot. Then I’d be pretty hard-pressed not to believe you, right?”

Keith shakes his head, tearing his eyes away from the way Lance’s brown knuckles and long fingers grip the wheel. “Why can’t you count half of them?” 

“ _ Because _ ,” Lance says like it’s obvious, “if someone already knows what Bigfoot is supposed to look like, then they could just as easily spot, like, a bear standing up from a hundred yards away and say, ‘oh look, that’s Bigfoot! Hurr durr.’”

Keith rolls his eyes, crossing his arms. “Not everyone is stupid or lying for attention.”

Lance laughs, glancing over at him. “I’m just saying, in the absence of real proof, believing that is a lot easier. People are dishonest more often than they’re truthful.”

“Is this going to become some bullshit ‘all people are inherently evil’ argument?” Keith grumbles. He looks up at Lance and their eyes meet. He can’t look away from those dark blue eyes, he never can. Lance smiles, and Keith catches the tips of his ears reddening. 

“”I don’t think everyone is evil,” he says softly, staring at Keith with a fond expression on his tan face. 

Keith blushes furiously, breaking eye contact immediately. “Oh shit, that’s our exit!”

The moment gone, Lance smirks and crosses three lanes to catch their exit in time. Next time, Keith’s driving. Jesus.

-

This is it, he thinks. This is the moment his whole life has prepared him for. When he goes inside, he’ll finally get the closest he’s ever been to a real interaction with a demonic presence. He has no idea what’s going to happen, but he is as prepared as he’ll ever -- 

“Are you going to finish that?” Lance gestures at the smoothie in Keith’s hand. “Because I’m hungry. And I’m taller than you, so I feel like I should get snack priority.”

Idiot. He wordlessly hands Lance the smoothie and checks the battery on his camera for the fifth time. 

“Why are you so nervous?” Lance asks, slurping loudly.

“I don’t know. It’s been awhile since -- well, I’ve never done this before.”

Lance steps in front of him, eyes narrowed. “Been awhile since what?”

Fuck. “Since, uh, since I had an encounter with the supernatural,” he relents. 

“I thought you said you’d never had an encounter.”

Keith tries to step around him to get to the museum door, but Lance blocks him. “Fine.” He can’t bring himself to meet Lance’s eyes. If he tells him about when he was thirteen, he doubts Lance would be able to take him seriously ever again. There’s a difference between debating seriously with a friend who has unconventional views, and thinking your friend has lost his mind. “When I was thirteen, I saw Bigfoot.”

Lance blinks. He obviously wasn’t expecting that. “Like from afar, or…?”

“God, no, it wasn’t a bear. It was right in front of me, and it looked just like a super hairy person. But nine feet tall.”

“Okay. Did anyone else see --”

“No. I’m not crazy, okay? I was thirteen and of sound mind and I saw what I saw. You don’t have to believe me. I’m not  _ making this up for attention. _ ”

Lance frowns when Keith repeats his words. “I never said you were. I believe you.”

“What, just like that? You believe in Bigfoot now?”

“Ah, no. I believe in your experience. I believe that you’re not lying. Of course, there might be other explanations for what you saw, but I don’t think you’re making it up.” Lance grips both of his arms and stares into his eyes. “I know you wouldn’t lie about something like this,” he says with such certainty that it takes Keith’s breath away. 

He releases him and pushes him towards the door to the museum, towards Annabelle. “Let’s go get your proof.”

Keith goes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the story of Annabelle in this fic is based pretty much entirely off of [ this episode of buzzfeed unsolved. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjqh9UVfNNk) I tried not to let the dialogue be too close to Shane and Ryan's in the episode, but some things had to stay pretty similar in order to tell the story of Annabelle like they did. There are obviously a few other things about Keith's show that are similar to Shane and Ryan's, like the ghost hunting gear they'll use next chapter. This is partly because I personally have never been ghost hunting, shockingly enough, and I trust the professionals to choose the right equipment. But all credit to Ryan Bergara for the ace research he did on Annabelle!
> 
> Lastly, Keith in this fic is [ this vine ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8kfP8qqSiA)


	3. Chapter 3

The door is big and painted black, with an ornate brass knocker and handle. It’s beautiful, but Keith doesn’t pay any attention to it. He wipes his palm on his jeans before grasping the handle and turning it. The door doesn’t squeak; it’s well oiled and maintained. The lighting inside the museum is dim and tinted red, and he knows it’s just for creeping out guests, but it’s definitely working. He steps inside the room and pauses, taking a breath. Behind him, Lance shuts the door and stands, a tad too close to him. His breath lifts the hair on the back of Keith’s neck. It’s cold. He shivers. 

“Whoa, there’s a lot more here than just Annabelle.”

“I told you, it’s a collection of all the haunted and cursed objects that the Warrens found during their career as paranormal investigators.”

“So, it’s a bunch of junk?” Lance grins cheekily into the camera. 

“I hope you’re ready to shit your pants, dude,” Keith says.

Lance looks at him, considering. Keith almost looks down to check if there’s anything spilled on him before he stops himself. “Oh, Annabelle….” Lance says in a sing-song voice.

“Shut up.” Keith grits his teeth. He swears he can feel the temperature in the room drop a couple degrees. “It’s not funny. Don’t taunt her while I'm here with you.”

“Aw come on, don’t you have your holy water with you?”

Oh, right. Keith reaches into his back pocket and pulls out the mister filled with holy water. He checks the mechanism by spraying some into the air near him and Lance. 

Lance leaps backwards, colliding with the display behind them and knocking over a blackened candelabra and a withered, leathery object. “Will you be careful with that stuff?”

Keith rolls his eyes. “I don’t know how this bit still makes our viewers laugh. You use it in every video.  _ Ooooh, I’m a demon, I’m so chaotic and sexy, don’t spray your holy water on me _ ,” he imitates. 

Lance sniffs, brushing a hand over his arms as if he’s checking they aren’t wet. “You think I’m sexy?”

_ Whoops _ . Keith brandishes the bottle of holy water and grins when Lance jerks back again. “God, you’re like a cat. I should put water in a bottle and spray you with it whenever you misbehave.”

“Sure. Just do it with unholy water, please.”

Keith snorts. “Sure, Satan.”

Lance rolls his eyes. “Appreciate it. You wanna talk to Annabelle alone first? Or should I?”

Keith almost volunteers to go first, but he makes eye contact with the doll in her glass case first. And eye contact is the only way to describe it -- her empty button eyes catch his in an instant, and his stomach drops to his feet.

He swallows. “You go first. I’ll wait outside. I just want to get some footage of these cursed items first.”

Lance gestures to the room like, ‘be my guest,’ before accidentally kicking the fake hand he’d knocked out of the display. He bends to pick it up, raising his eyebrows. “This is a hand of glory.”

Keith stares at him.

“What, I wasn’t expecting something this interesting in here.” Lance turns the shriveled hand over in his. “Did you know these are made by cutting off the left hand of a thief?” 

“Wait, is that actually -- a human  _ hand _ ?” Keith wrinkles his nose. 

Lance tosses it once, spinning it before catching it again. “Yup, pickled and dried.”

“Ew, put it down. What is wrong with you?” 

Lance shrugs and puts it gently back on the display before bending to pick up the other objects he knocked over. As he’s grabbing the last one, a rosary made of eerie white beads, he swears, dropping the necklace and shaking his hand out. The heavy cross pendant makes an odd muffled crack against the stone floor.

Belatedly, Lance sticks his thumb in his mouth, mumbling, “Cut my thumb, can you put that away for me please?”

When does he ever say please? Keith picks the necklace up (there are no sharp edges) and places it in the palm of the hand of glory gingerly. “How did you know what a hand of glory was?”

Lance removes his thumb from his mouth and Keith tries not to watch. “Harry Potter.”

Keith knows that’s a lie, but the museum is creeping him out, so he nods. “I’ll get the footage later. Just start interacting with the doll now. How long do you want with it?”

Lance turns to the glass case and frowns, considering. “Ten minutes should be enough time to convince it to kill you, right?”

“Oh my god, I hate you. Please don’t actually do that.”

Lance flashes him a grin over his shoulder. “Don’t worry, I won’t let any scary demons hurt you.”

Keith shoves the camera into Lance’s hands and stomps out, eyes catching on the harmless ivory rosary in the withered hand. 

Ten minutes later, it’s his turn. Lance breezes out of the room, grinning widely. “I’ve got her all warmed up for you!”

Keith feels a cold finger trace his spine. He doesn’t reply. 

Lance knocks his shoulder with his gently. “You sure you wanna do this?”

He rounds on Lance, intending to defend himself, before stopping short in surprise at his cohost’s genuine concern. He feels his face soften -- he’s so obvious these days -- before nodding. 

Keith does feel like he’s overreacting a bit -- after all, he did face down Bigfoot when he was thirteen and he only bawled for four hours afterward -- but this is his first time attempting communication with a demon. An alleged demon. So, you know. Cut him some slack. 

The atmosphere inside the museum is suffocatingly silent.

He bought a thermometer among a few other ghost hunting tools on Amazon, and he pulls it out to check for cold spots now. The room seems chillier than when he was in it with Lance ten minutes ago, but that’s probably because he always feels warm and happy around the bastard. Still, he wishes he had gotten a baseline then, just to rub it in Lance’s face if he actually did find anything worth mentioning.

Sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit, then sixty-three right in front of Annabelle’s glass case. Weird, but he doesn’t want to contaminate his evidence with blind assumptions. He’s here to collect data, nothing more. When he was researching this video, he learned that the wood making up the top and the bottom of her case is actually impregnated with holy water -- and though he knows that, if Annabelle really is possessed, she wouldn’t be able to pass through the holy water in the case, he still feels foolish counting wet wood as suitable defense.

He sets up a couple motion detector cameras around the room, all of them more or less facing Annabelle’s case. He also grabs two flashlights and puts them on the shelf to either side of her case, making sure to twist their heads enough to balance them between  _ on _ and  _ off _ . He read somewhere that these flashlights can flicker on and off on their own (something to do with heat induction?), but also that they’re really easy for spirits to manipulate. Hopefully Annabelle will use the flashlights to talk to him tonight. 

Finally, he presses  _ record _ .

He inhales, then exhales. “If there’s --” his voice cracks. “If there’s anyone with me in the room, please turn on the flashlights.”

He pauses, staring at the lights. They don’t turn on. He sucks in a shaky breath before continuing. “If there are any spirits in this room, can you move something or make a noise to show me you’re here?”

Still nothing. He can’t hear anything but the sound of his own breathing and the hum of the motion detector cameras. If they pick up anything, they beep once to signal that they have begun filming. He doesn’t really expect them to make any noise the whole time, but he wanted to be thorough. He shifts his weight and a floorboard creaks. He bites his lip before exhaling in frustration. He hadn’t wanted to do this, but.

He strides to the light switch and flicks off the museum’s weak amber lights, and the room is plunged into darkness. The only light comes from the display light inside of Annabelle’s case, making her look like a floating apparition in a dream.

“Annabelle, are you in here?”

One flashlight blinks on. Keith’s heart drops to his feet.

“Annabelle, do you have a message for me?”

The flashlight blinks off. Keith breathes out. “My name is Keith. If you have a message for me, please say it before I leave.”

Nothing happens. Keith frowns. In order for the flashlight method to work, the lights need to blink a lot more than a couple times to prove it’s a ghost using them to communicate, not a coincidence. 

“Annabelle, are you a demon?”

The camera behind him beeps. He whips around, nearly dropping his camera in the process. It’s too dark to see anything, but the motion detector is definitely filming. He can see the red dot that means it’s recording. 

“Annabelle, why have you possessed the doll?”

The motion detector light blinks off. Keith swallows with a click. The back of his neck prickles as he slowly turns to face the case again.

It’s empty.

He blinks.

It’s still empty. 

“_Lance_ _\--!_” he shouts, scrambling for the light switch. The motion detectors all go off at once, beeping wildly, red lights flickering. The flashlights turn on before rolling off the counter and clattering to the ground. A beam swings into his eyes, temporarily blinding him. He trips and falls into a display. 

He cracks his head on the stone floor when he hits the ground, and he feels something sharp dig into his hip. He squirms, trying to dislodge it, when something ice cold wraps around his ankle.

A sob rips its way out of his throat as his hand touches the wrinkled skin of the Hand of Glory. He tastes bile. He’s blind, and the icy tentacle is climbing up his leg, the weight of it making his bones creak. 

He kicks his leg out and the cold vanishes. He coughs, gasping for breath, but his respite is short lived. Within seconds, it’s wrapping around his throat and squeezing so hard he feels blood vessels in his eyes burst. His left hand feels nothing when he brings it up to his throat, but he sees stars and feels his collarbone snap.

If he could just reach --  _ there _ . His hand closes around the chain of the bone cross, not too far from the Hand of Glory. With his last drop of energy, he swings his arm, passing the pendant through the dark in front of him before letting it land on his chest.

The weight around his neck vanishes with a scream. He inhales raggedly, clutching the necklace to his chest and retching. The motion detectors are shrieking by this point, and his breath comes out in clouds of condensation. In the light of the two flashlight beams, he sees a table from the opposite end of the room rise into the air before flying at him like it was thrown. 

Keith is frozen in place watching a three hundred pound antique table come at him like it weighs nothing when the door falls open with a tremendous  _ boom _ and Lance,  _ finally _ , is walking right into its path,  _ wait -- “Watch out!”  _ he screams but his throat is so torn up it just sounds like noise and Lance is looking at him and then the table fucking  _ hits him _ \-- 

And breaks.

And Lance is still standing there.

“Enough,” Lance says, and there’s something hard and angry in his voice that brooks no argument. The motion detectors fall silent. The light streaming in from the outside is bright and welcoming, and in it he sees Lance make an odd gesture with his hand. The lights in the room come on immediately. 

Keith throws up.

Lance is immediately in front of him. “Keith, honey, what happened? Where does it hurt?”

He wipes his mouth with his sleeve and shakes his head. “How are you not dead right now?”

“Don’t be dramatic,” Lance says, rolling his eyes. He reaches out for Keith before pausing. His face goes blank. “Look, do you want to get out of here or not? I’m pretty sure you need to get to a hospital.”

“Give me a second. I think I’m going into shock.” Keith’s breathing too fast. “What the fuck just happened?” On the last word, his voice cracks, sending him into a coughing fit. 

Lance’s face twists. “You need to see a doctor. I can see your clavicle.”

Keith looks down and  _ oh my god _ , yep, that is his collarbone, sticking out of his body. It didn’t hurt before but the second he lays eyes on it, it’s blindingly painful. “I’m going to pass out,” he whimpers. 

“Keith, look at me,” Lance says. “Put it down so I can help you, please. I’m begging you.”

Keith looks up at him, uncomprehending.

Lance sighs through his nose before jerking his head down to Keith’s lap. His hand is still clamped down on the bone cross, clutching so tightly he’s pretty sure it’s cut into his palm. His fingertips are white with the effort. With a concerted effort, he relaxes his hand, letting the cross fall onto the floor. Lance is on him immediately then, tilting his head back and examining the bruises on his throat. “Okay, I can probably fix some of these, but I don’t really trust myself with your collarbone, so we really do need to get you to a hospital,” he says, talking quickly, the way he does when he’s nervous.

“What?” he croaks. 

“Can you walk? Can you get to the car from here? We can come back for the gear later, I’ll tell the owners I’ll pay for the damage, just please, get your ass in the car, you’re worrying me,” he says, trying to simultaneously cradle Keith in his arms and propel him to standing with his legs.

“No, what was that about the necklace?” Keith says, letting himself be ushered toward the exit on numb legs. 

Lance glances at him. “I kinda feel like you already know. But I’ll explain later. Keep walking.”

Keith opens his mouth to argue but Lance huffs, passing a smooth brown hand over his eyes and before Keith knows it he’s falling into darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the third part! I'm working on the next part right now. I'm actually starting to pack and stuff to move back into college, so updates may be rare. But I'm trying to write as much as I can before I don't have time anymore! Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Title from driven by you by brian may! Come find me on tumblr  here or on twitter  here


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